The OP ignores changes in the player base and changes in game lifecycle. You want to revert the game to the way it was back then, but that won't change the fact that back then the game was new to many players, and that the experience was new to many. When I started playing (tragically) a mere 5 years ago, I found the game engrossing, and that there was a world, etc. it probably wasn't as great as yours, though.

Now, I grant you, it seems like 2-3 months after the expac -which was excellent - a lot of people have dropped subs, and this was backed by Blizzard's statement. But if I log on during prime time, there are plenty of people, crafters available, etc.

You seem to be falling into the age old trap of fondly remembering the early days of, well, it doesn't matter, and thinking that if you could just go back to when it was shiny and new, everything would be great again. People, families, companies, and communities are in a constant state of change. You change with them or you move on. If your time has come, farewell, friend. Personally, I've been quitting WoW for over two years, so they must be doing something right.

All ability to teleport to Dungeons, Make everyone ride there.
Remove Flying mounts from Azeroth
Remove all high level guards from low level towns and villages
Buff Dungeons so that you actually need to play your class properly
Remove at least 50% of wind riders and graveyards, get the traffic back on the roads
Remove Ability to teleport into Battlegrounds, make us go to battlemasters as in the old days (just make more of them to avoid griefers).
Remove a lot of phasing as it ruins immersion when you chase someone and they suddenly vanish.

I wouldnt mind at all. Would be fun to actually have some action somewhere again

As a few of you will know who have seen my recent WOW videos I have returned after a 3 year break to see what has gone wrong with the game I played 6 times a week for 6 years of my life.

One word can easily sum up what is wrong with WOW and that word is "IMMERSION"

When I played through Vanilla and BC many years ago this game was incredible, the immersion of the whole experience engulfed you so much that you literally could lose yourself for hours in the world of Azeroth.

To get immersion the one thing you need is a thriving world and WOW used to have that in abundance. Everywhere was busy, Horde and Alliance would often meet in random places as two guilds were on their way to various Dungeons and this small skirmish would often escalate into a large war.

The game was total sandbox, no one had any idea what would happen during your daily play time. Our guild would have a plan to maybe go to BRD but on the way we may be ganked by another guild, again this would start a war off which usually ended with both sides calling in other guilds for help. Then when you eventually got into the Dungeon you had to concentrate, use your class well and be prepared for at least a good hour long Dungeon.

Then we had the questing, quite often I would find my quest areas compromised by Alliance and have to send for help in order to get them to leave, it was great fun. Sure you sometimes were corpse camped but Azeroth was dangerous back then.

Sometimes we would be in Org discussing what we would be doing when 100 Alliance would storm through the gates to kill Thrall, it was just an amazing living thriving world, totally in the players control.

Now though it's totally different, the Cities are full but the towns and roads are empty. People don't need to leave their capital city, they can teleport everywhere like lemmings, striving to get gear but for what? So they can dual outside their City gates?

All over Azeroth the little towns and villages that attracted so much world PvP are now guarded with level 90 Guards. Instead we have to PvP either in the boring battlegrounds or try and find someone questing.

The trouble is why would anyone be questing now? They can level up in BG's and Dungeons without leaving the AH.

World PvP is the thing that brought immersion and it was immersion that brought the players and the players brought the money. If you look at a graph of the subscribers you will see a steady rise in Subs while wow was immersive during the Vanilla and BC times but then as WOTL arrived you will see it level off and then fall and it's falling fast now. This is because people left but more important, people left and told others how bad the game had become.

So lets talk solutions:

Blizzard need to swallow their pride, admit they got it wrong and give Azeroth back to the people.

Remove the following things:

All ability to teleport to Dungeons, Make everyone ride there.
Remove Flying mounts from Azeroth
Remove all high level guards from low level towns and villages
Buff Dungeons so that you actually need to play your class properly
Remove at least 50% of wind riders and graveyards, get the traffic back on the roads
Remove Ability to teleport into Battlegrounds, make us go to battlemasters as in the old days (just make more of them to avoid griefers).
Remove a lot of phasing as it ruins immersion when you chase someone and they suddenly vanish.

Add the following things

All future expansions should take place in Azeroth, do not add any more zones, just develop the story on Azeroth so it thrives once again.

Conclusion

Ofc none of this will happen as the tears that would be shed could possibly flood the world and wipe us all out. The new breed of player has no balls, has no ability to shake him/herself down after being ganked and certainly has no patience to ride from A to B. Can you imagine the wow players of today trying to survive in Vanilla, they would have a heart attack at how hardcore it used to be. No I am afraid MMO's now are so easy, so spoon fed that the players today simply could not cope with old wow.

From a business point of view Blizzard are currently their own worst enemy, they are killing the game by making it so easy and forgiving. If they opened a BC server millions would return, but this would be an admission of doing it wrong and the PR department won't allow that

HaHaHa i couldnt had said it better my self..

Being a player from back in the old days, even played Us closed beta, even the Korean closed beta and finally Eu beta, todays players wouldnt survive a day or two back then..

Holy crap i miss chasing ppl down BRM "Me being a rogue back then" or ganking in Tarren mill, in and out, ambushing a poor mage, getting the guards on my tail half the way down to Southshore.. Both sides lined up at the guard tower, runnig back and forth. Ganking ppl all the time, in every map, every chance u had.. Shit u didnt know what u would meet down the road... Riding all by ur self meeting a hole guild, its quite a nice experience.. HAHAHAHA Been there, done that, and survived..

What u have written is true, all too true, but with the new generation of players "Lazy ass MF if u ask me" Blizzard makes the game mainsteam to fit all kind of players, its both a good thing and a bad thing.

The most important thing Blizz has forgotten is the world it self, there isnt any ppl in it any more.

As u also stated, take away all the above and merge low pop servers, get more ppl on the server, more vibrant, more alive. Back in vanilla the servers couldnt even handle two guilds with 40 ppl on each side, duking it out down in Tanaris with out crashing the servers. For the love of GOD Blizz u should be able to have a decent set of servers by now, so we can do this kind of things without the gadd damm BG´s.... This is the heart of WOW two factions against each other, thats what the game is all about. BUT, a big one, it needs to move out from the Bg´s and in too the world once again.

As for my self, im having a hard time to play now days, with a wife and two kids, but some time´s i get really psyched, i login, i look at my toon for maybe 30 60 sec, and remember once again, why the hell im i playing this game any more, there isnt something to, beside´s from doing some dungeon´s with some obnoxious spoiled brat on the other side, who where like 3 years old when i started playing this game, screaming at all the ppl in grp.. Or do some Bg´s with 20 bots out of 40 ppl playing, and the other 20 ppl are running around like headless chickens?? Or go out into the world, actually ride "not fly" through the world, not even seeing another player for hours while farming nods or herbs...

I know its long gone, the the wow i knew, when dungeon´s took more then 15 30 min, when u actually needed to get to the entrence of the dungeon to enter. Meeting ppl in towns grouping up for a elit quest or just questing in a group just for fun, having a chat about where u from or what u do for living.

Almost every friend i have, who played wow stopped playing, ok we played since day one, the game is getting old, its not new and exciting any more, like it was in the two first expansions...

I think blizz really needs to think the next expansions over, to get it right or they will loose even more subs, but i think there may only be one or two expansions, then Titan or what its called, will be released and wow will at last die... I hope, we need something new...

When i started playing wow the average age of the player where above 23-25, now its down to maybe 11-13?? Im 34 to day and i still love to playing
game´s and especially MMO´s when i have spare time, but i wanna do it with friends, and its quite hard when every one stops playing, becouse the game´s suck and ppl in it too, it has gotten to ELIT, u need to be best of the best, highst on the Dps, and if u r not, u r are a NOOB and get screamed at. And this come´s from the player segment, players who are 11-16 of age. A bunch of kids who dont care about anything else but them self. Not all of them, but many. Sad but true.... The new wave of players in the mmo world..

The MMO scene needs to shape up.

Crap i didnt mean to do a long write up... Thats my 2 cent on the hole thing...

Fact of the matter is, people want new. They want new things to play with, new things to experience, new hobbies and activities to work towards, with a sense of accomplisment from it.

Wow, even if it pours a couple of new things into it, its really just the same old thing. new dungeons and enviroments? Yeah, but to get the same old points and grinding daily quests for the same rep grind as always. New battle grounds? More like the same battle ground design with a slight tweek on a preexisting one.

and even if the developers did complete revamp there design approach to whatever new max level content comes after mists, you will still have all that came before it.

@!#% Your casual players, they are the reason we have lost the game we love,

IF YOU DONT HAVE TIME TO PLAY A GAME, DONT PLAY IT!!

Great post, 100% agreed.

Casual players is what fuels this game, without them any elitist hardcore raider or die-hard pvp gamer with minimum 2400 in arena wouldn't have a game to play. Bad players and retarded whiners plague the game and the community. Not casuals.

When i started playing wow the average age of the player where above 23-25, now its down to maybe 11-13??

[citation needed]

it has gotten to ELIT, u need to be best of the best, highst on the Dps, and if u r not, u r are a NOOB and get screamed at. And this come´s from the player segment, players who are 11-16 of age. A bunch of kids who dont care about anything else but them self.

so people who want other's to perform better when they are playing with them since the success hinges on everyone performing to a certain extend are selfish but player who do shitty dps and hold back 2/4/9/24 other people aren't?

Casual players is what fuels this game, without them any elitist hardcore raider or die-hard pvp gamer with minimum 2400 in arena wouldn't have a game to play. Bad players and retarded whiners plague the game and the community. Not casuals.

I mean I don't think these people get it. The problem is PEOPLE STOPPED PLAYING THE GAME. Making it more of a time sink won't stop that.

The hammer comes down:

Originally Posted by Osmeric

Normal should be reduced in difficulty. Heroic should be reduced in difficulty.
And the tiny fraction for whom heroic raids are currently well tuned? Too bad,so sad! With the arterial bleed of subs the fastest it's ever been, the vanity development that gives you guys your own content is no longer supportable.

Why did I suddenly stop having fun? Combination of things... LFD changed my standards of fun, and the change back to BC-Style dungeons was slow, tedius and unfun to me. The style of the game was in the toilet (can't speak for MoP, cus I stopped right before it came out), Raids became boring 4-6 bosses standing in glorified hotel lobbies instead of raiding a full-on palace (ICC, Ulduar, even Naxx (hush Vanilla fans! :P)). The main villain had NO story or connection save for him randomly burning patches of land. Gear design looked aweful. next to NOTHING you could do with your Justice/Valor after gear upgrades. Blech, The game just became an akward bunch of "meh"...

Things looked up with 5.whatever - the one with DS and Darkmoon faire island. LOVED Darkmoon Island! Thought the the 3 new dungeons were only OK... good pacing but they got old REAL fast due to stupidly putting those three on a separate timer. I liked LFR a LOT - but even I'll admit the DS "design" (or lack thereof) really showed...

CRZ's implementation on my PVE server is what drove me back away...

So, after saying ALL that - I simply have to ask this of those who left durring MoP. Is there a problem with who the MoP content was designed for... or is it rather simply that the MoP content isn't fun to play for anybody regardless of casual/hardcore? Is it REALLY just the difficulty? or could it be more than that? Maybe the players simply don't feel like they have control? That they don't ask "what can I do today" vs "Damnit, I got to hit ALL these things today!"

So, after saying ALL that - I simply have to ask this of those who left durring MoP. Is there a problem with who the MoP content was designed for... or is it rather simply that the MoP content isn't fun to play for anybody regardless of casual/hardcore? Is it REALLY just the difficulty? or could it be more than that? Maybe the players simply don't feel like they have control? That they don't ask "what can I do today" vs "Damnit, I got to hit ALL these things today!"

I would say that overall quality of design has gone way down since the BC/LK days, and this has really not much to do with easy vs difficult game play. Blizzard has gotten lazy for sure.

Another problem that even the most casual of players will become bored of being spoon fed quick, easy content, especially when they eat it up at a incredible rate due to its ease of access. They can accomplish the new content in a matter of days, which then leaves nothing left to do afterwards but wait until the next content release. Its just become a mindless grind that provides very little challenge instead of something that invokes a thought process. I believe what caused the success of the game in the early years, it used to make people think about things (I know it hurts for some people to think, but it worked). Blizzard has made its own monster with this in that they're stuck having to release content more rapidly or lose subs. This of course is a purely losing battle at this point for Blizzard.

There has been a numberof bad design choices in WoW over the past few years which seem to have condensed into what we have today.

so people who want other's to perform better when they are playing with them since the success hinges on everyone performing to a certain extend are selfish but player who do shitty dps and hold back 2/4/9/24 other people aren't?

k....

As i stated before the game has become to Elitish. That said and to Answer Enosh:

Ok if u r in guild that try´s to progress i understand that u need to be top of u r class, but in dungeon´s, give the guy a brake, its maybe he´s first time in it, the thing is, most players forget that they also have been new to the game at some point and where equal crapy as the guy they are hammering.

If a guild recruit a player thats not on top of he´s class, dont hammer him, help him, talk to him, insteed of shooting him down, have seen this kind of behavior a 1000 time´s with players that live at home, no job, playing 24/7 and they expect every one else can do the same...

So, after saying ALL that - I simply have to ask this of those who left durring MoP. Is there a problem with who the MoP content was designed for... or is it rather simply that the MoP content isn't fun to play for anybody regardless of casual/hardcore? Is it REALLY just the difficulty? or could it be more than that? Maybe the players simply don't feel like they have control? That they don't ask "what can I do today" vs "Damnit, I got to hit ALL these things today!"

I left a month after MoP and only recently came back, so here's my answer to this: I left for a combination of reasons, mainly because doing the stupid Golden Lotus/Klaxxi dailies got boring after about the first week, and knowing that I had to keep doing GL dailies in order to UNLOCK more dailies (Shado-pan and Celestials) was total BS. I didn't mind doing some dailies (I did my Cloud Serpent ones religiously until I got my dragon) but they weren't fun and the gating was crap. The dungeons were boring for reasons I'm not sure why, as I had fun with them the first time and they were a welcome change from Cata launch when they were painful as hell. Another big factor in my leaving was (this is IMO of course) the fact that MSV was tuned way too high for an "entry level" raid. My casual guild had TONS of problems on Stone Guard, and after spending most of our raid weeks (we got a late start as some of our raiders had other commitments, our main tank was rerolling Monk and we started raiding I believe third week of the xpac) trying to down Stone Guard, we got a few attempts in at Feng before the reset and then were never able to get past Stone Guard again, so people stopped logging in and showing up because we all felt it was BS that an entry-level raid was so unforgiving, and to me anyways it was as if Blizzard had learned nothing from T11 when guilds broke up because they could clear (nerfed) ICC but couldn't down Magmaw/Omnotron/Halfus.

So yes it was mostly the difficulty of the raids (now don't get me wrong I would not have minded if HoF and TES were challenging, but MSV should have been barely harder than heroics because it was entry-level content. That alone would have made a HUGE difference if my guild had been able to get MSV on farm within a week or two and could set aside a night for that while progressing in HoF) but also the fact that Blizzard thinks that adding more and more and more dailies are "things to do" when they aren't fun past the first time you do them, and feel like busywork or working a menial job.

I think the game would be alot better if they returned to the vanilla/tbc style of inaccessible content. So that lesser players can have something to aspire to, and so that world first ans what guild in the world is #1 and stuff like that starts being interesting again. That adds an aspect of quality to the game for both casuals, who won't experience the content, and the hardcore who will. But - unlike the vanilla/tbc style - they should continue what they are doing now and keep focusing on the casual players and release tons of stuff for them to do. Basicly they should do both - and no, they are not doing both now. Heroic raids and challenge dungeons etc. are not the same as releasing hard core content. That is just buffing existing content making it harder, turning the game into a grindfest rather than an epic adventure.

What they need to do is have raid content that is not the same with a bunch of difficulties, but rather they need make raids with 1 difficulty that are truly challenging and hard the way they used to be - and then they should also have casual content. Start making like 10-man casual raids and 25-man hardcore raids, and if the endboss of the game is Azshara well then she will obiously be the last boss in the last 25-man raid, and then have a few 10-man casual raids where some Lady Vashj-style lieutenants of her are the last boss - that you have to defeat because they are guarding the Queen's Citadel or something.

Basicly, they need to do less difficulties and more content. And vary the difficuly on the content. Introduce legendary items as the item drops from 25-man raids, keep epic items for 10-man raids and keep rare items for 5-man dungeons. And make more 5-man dungeons and less daily quest hubs, too.

Some kind of combat system for word PvP would be cool too. Like, if a bunch of people clash out in the Barrens some kind of semi-Arena game with automatically launch and x Horde and x Alliance players in proximity to eachother / in party will automaticly be invulnerable to outsiders as they fight to the death - and the team that wins will automaticly have all their fallen instantly revived as they win and their HP go up to 100% (as to prevent spectator killing off the winner should he have like 10% hp left as the game ends). Stuff like that.

Also, more attunment. They say they didn't like attunments because it was.. what?... I don't remember, something about complicated or time consuming or something? Yet since then they have introduced daily quests which is perhaps the most boring piece of crap the game has ever seen? (although I like it being part of the game, for casual players mainly, although - as all things - it should be kept to a certain level of moderation) ... Basicly make it harder to just quit the game, come back after 7 months and jump back in where everyone else are. Just a tiny whiny bit harder.

As a few of you will know who have seen my recent WOW videos I have returned after a 3 year break to see what has gone wrong with the game I played 6 times a week for 6 years of my life.

One word can easily sum up what is wrong with WOW and that word is "IMMERSION"

When I played through Vanilla and BC many years ago this game was incredible, the immersion of the whole experience engulfed you so much that you literally could lose yourself for hours in the world of Azeroth.

To get immersion the one thing you need is a thriving world and WOW used to have that in abundance. Everywhere was busy, Horde and Alliance would often meet in random places as two guilds were on their way to various Dungeons and this small skirmish would often escalate into a large war.

The game was total sandbox, no one had any idea what would happen during your daily play time. Our guild would have a plan to maybe go to BRD but on the way we may be ganked by another guild, again this would start a war off which usually ended with both sides calling in other guilds for help. Then when you eventually got into the Dungeon you had to concentrate, use your class well and be prepared for at least a good hour long Dungeon.

Then we had the questing, quite often I would find my quest areas compromised by Alliance and have to send for help in order to get them to leave, it was great fun. Sure you sometimes were corpse camped but Azeroth was dangerous back then.

Sometimes we would be in Org discussing what we would be doing when 100 Alliance would storm through the gates to kill Thrall, it was just an amazing living thriving world, totally in the players control.

Now though it's totally different, the Cities are full but the towns and roads are empty. People don't need to leave their capital city, they can teleport everywhere like lemmings, striving to get gear but for what? So they can dual outside their City gates?

All over Azeroth the little towns and villages that attracted so much world PvP are now guarded with level 90 Guards. Instead we have to PvP either in the boring battlegrounds or try and find someone questing.

The trouble is why would anyone be questing now? They can level up in BG's and Dungeons without leaving the AH.

World PvP is the thing that brought immersion and it was immersion that brought the players and the players brought the money. If you look at a graph of the subscribers you will see a steady rise in Subs while wow was immersive during the Vanilla and BC times but then as WOTL arrived you will see it level off and then fall and it's falling fast now. This is because people left but more important, people left and told others how bad the game had become.

The correct word to use is: suspense. There's none of it left. Without that, you can't be immersed.

Originally Posted by Dagoroth23

So lets talk solutions:

Blizzard need to swallow their pride, admit they got it wrong and give Azeroth back to the people.

The game was changing anyway, and old hobbies were dying out. They changed the game, introducing content too fast.

Originally Posted by Dagoroth23

Remove the following things:

All ability to teleport to Dungeons, Make everyone ride there.
Remove Flying mounts from Azeroth
Remove all high level guards from low level towns and villages
Buff Dungeons so that you actually need to play your class properly
Remove at least 50% of wind riders and graveyards, get the traffic back on the roads
Remove Ability to teleport into Battlegrounds, make us go to battlemasters as in the old days (just make more of them to avoid griefers).
Remove a lot of phasing as it ruins immersion when you chase someone and they suddenly vanish.

› Riding (flying not included) to a dungeon was never fun - after the first couple of times.
› No, no, no. I like flying, even if exploration is more epic while grounded.
› Answer not available about removing guards from hubs.
› Dungeons have multiple difficulties now.
› I agree with you about the traffic.
› Going to a Battlemaster was a lot better.
› Phasing is interesting technology, but I don't always agree with it.

Originally Posted by Dagoroth23

Add the following things

All future expansions should take place in Azeroth, do not add any more zones, just develop the story on Azeroth so it thrives once again.

Not every expansion should take place in the same area. In fact, Cataclysm was a test and it failed.

Originally Posted by Dagoroth23

Conclusion

Ofc none of this will happen as the tears that would be shed could possibly flood the world and wipe us all out. The new breed of player has no balls, has no ability to shake him/herself down after being ganked and certainly has no patience to ride from A to B. Can you imagine the wow players of today trying to survive in Vanilla, they would have a heart attack at how hardcore it used to be. No I am afraid MMO's now are so easy, so spoon fed that the players today simply could not cope with old wow.

All of what you suggested, will not save WoW - only kill it quicker. The communities and player-base has changed, and players today wouldn't cope with it. The game itself was already changing. A grindfest that Vanilla was, not sure how anyone can find that fun. Yeah, you might feel proud for doing something grindy afterward. It's not really healthy either, you know?

Originally Posted by Dagoroth23

From a business point of view Blizzard are currently their own worst enemy, they are killing the game by making it so easy and forgiving. If they opened a BC server millions would return, but this would be an admission of doing it wrong and the PR department won't allow that

You're probably right about Blizzard being their worst enemy, and I doubt millions would return for a BC server, but the game should progress forward - not backward.

Blizzard doesn't have to swallow their pride.
They need to start to grow some balls instead.
The game was at it's best when they didn't listen to every single internet expert, who knew absolutely what would make the game even better.
As the game moved on and evolved, so did the community. A community of self entitlement, and arrogance evolved from the game. A part of that community (as a careful guess, about 15 - 20%) turned to the online platforms like fansites, forums and the like, and that community part became very vocal. Everyone had an opinion, mostly another one than the next guy.. But we know how it is with opinions. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. And more than often there's no difference on their value. For years now, Blizzard tries to please their community. Essentially not a bad thing, who doesn't like great customer service?
But is that still customer service? I doubt it. Blizzard got lost in a maze of different opinions... The game shifted in a direction where it's development comes across like a giant Wishing Well. Reality is.... Ones glorious idea to the better, is absolutely hideous for the next guy. Yet Blizzard got caught more and more in that jungle of requests, and complaints. Resulting in them flip flopping back and forth.
When you constantly flip flop, you losing your direction, you are throwing everyone off. That can lead to a wide alienating of your customer base.
Hence...... Blizzard needs to grow some balls.
Blizzard created a game that was beyond anything ever seen before. They had it all right, and the sub numbers grown ever larger. The only thing that really changed was to what extend they've listened to their community. If they would stop listening, using their original instincts again and go from there, chances are that it could become better again. WoW was NEVER perfect, but that imperfection was part of what made it great.
The game got "ruined" (if one can really call it that) in team work. By Blizzard and by the community. To end that cycle, Blizzard needs to step out of it, and the community needs to accept the game for what it is. A product offered to them as customers, and then make their only real choice they have.
Either play it, or don't. it is not a wishing well.. That part got the game into the current state, and it isn't the best state, that's for sure.

"The pen is mightier than the sword.. and considerably easier to write with."

Blizzard tries to attract too many different kind of gamers. There are not only 'casuals' and 'hardcores'. There are many, many subcategories. My personal opinion is that Blizzard tries to satisfy far too may types of people, keeping only profit in mind. The loss of 2 million players from the start of MoP is combination of that, global economy and the fact that game is simply old.

Although I love the game, raiding most particularly, I honestly think Blizzard doesn't know how to handle such diversity of players. Also, I find it extremely unfair that they just refuse to merge servers. I think that's an unbelievable dick move. Any other game does it without a problem while Blizzard 'is working on a solution' for the last couple of year. Argument that really pissed me off was when GC said that one of the reasons they can't merge servers was because population gets a lot bigger when new patches hit. There are servers that have so few people that even if they had 1000000% increase in population, they would still be empty. That argument showed us that they are running out of excuses, because that was a really bad one (not to mention the issue with players with the same names). With money in mind, they don't want to look bad to investors and stock holders. WoW did start as a game made from passion to gaming and Warcraft franchise but as the game grow they've gotten to the point where they cannot handle requirements for those 12 million people (peak) to be happy because it's simply impossible to keep everyone happy, and they are persistent in doing that.

What they need to do is have raid content that is not the same with a bunch of difficulties, but rather they need make raids with 1 difficulty that are truly challenging and hard the way they used to be - and then they should also have casual content. Start making like 10-man casual raids and 25-man hardcore raids, and if the endboss of the game is Azshara well then she will obiously be the last boss in the last 25-man raid, and then have a few 10-man casual raids where some Lady Vashj-style lieutenants of her are the last boss - that you have to defeat because they are guarding the Queen's Citadel or something.

Basicly, they need to do less difficulties and more content. And vary the difficuly on the content. Introduce legendary items as the item drops from 25-man raids, keep epic items for 10-man raids and keep rare items for 5-man dungeons. And make more 5-man dungeons and less daily quest hubs, too.

VERY well put imo. It reminds of how AQ was introduced. A small welcoming 20 man raid with individual bosses and story, leading to the 40 man legendary raid. You are exactly right that the problem today is that all difficulties of the raids nonetheless has the same bosses / story / "adventure". There is really nothing that separates people anymore as anyone has been there done that in some way. Whereas back in the days people would wonder and got curious of whats behind those gates, how and where that sick looking gear was from, etc, as it was 'inaccessible' for the newcomer/newbie. Blizzard mistook a valuable thing for a problem and thought they had to "help" out the newcomer by streamlining things, and spoon feeding people. What they forgot though, was that it created a mass of brats and spoiled kids who left the server communities desolate. It was a mature game with immature graphics back in the days, and that was its charm.

---------- Post added 2013-05-11 at 01:23 PM ----------

I 100% agree that Blizzard not merging servers is a dick move. Truly is.
They have listened to so many stupid ideas, tried to please so many that they trample on others while doing it. But the one thing everyone can agree on is not being done; Merging servers with low population.

I'm playing on Runetotem EU, and we have struggled to keep our raiding guild going since the server experienced a serious drop of players on the horde side after Mist, and leading up to. The primary reason for the down drop was due to a huge influx of Italian people at the start of ICC; sadly I should say, this destroyed the community a little as Italian was now the primary language in /1 /2 though I have nothing again'st Italians, I would had loved if English would had stayed for all. But then they were offered their own servers before Mist, resulting in over 50 % horde leaving. -> resulting in then further guilds giving up.
The people in my guild have all played on Runetotem since Vanilla, and we would be a little sad if we had to leave what remains. Rather, we still fight and raid , and hopefully some day before we are gone the server will be merged with another.

I should say this; we are only 3 raiding horde guilds on the server. - None of which has killed Lei Shen. So if they really want us to be able to experience all the content, and not in raidfinder, then I say this to them; Merge the fucking servers.
And if Blizz are so honest, they should write to newcomers, instead of "low/high popu" on server tags, rather write "possible to raid yes/no"
Its VERY hard to have a 10 man guild going on Runetotem, its impossible to make a 25 man horde raiding guild.

Spot on, Wildtree. The whiny bastards criticize Blizzard anytime they respond "rude" or ignore them, while Blizzard should TRULY ignore almost all of it, especially when you consider that these pathetic crybabies, bitching about everything, threaten them with crap stuff like cancelling sub if they "don't do this" "don't do that", which is hilarious, since these guys are, mostly, excatly the kind of addicted gamers that will NEVER leave the game, but still love to use this excuse for try and see if their useless whims are listened and satisfied.
Ironically, in fact, those who truly abandon the game are the far less vocal players, people that never wrote whining posts but simply decided, at some point, that they were done with the game.